Greed in book deal is blasted

I don't begrudge people who profit from personal life experiences. There's often something we can learn from other people's dramas and traumas.

Michelle Singletary

I don't begrudge people who profit from personal life experiences. There's often something we can learn from other people's dramas and traumas.

Yet there was something upsetting about the swift actions by one juror in the trial of George Zimmerman, who was found innocent of all charges stemming from the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

For now, we know this person only by her court designation, B37. She was the first juror to grant an interview, sitting down with CNN's Anderson Cooper in a session that aired the Monday and Tuesday after the verdict. The Florida mother of two stayed in the shadows, opting to remain anonymous.

"Did you realize how big this trial had become?" Cooper asked.

"I had no clue, no clue whatsoever," the juror answered.

But look how quickly she and her husband moved to hire a literary agent to shop a book. The verdict was the previous Saturday night. Makes me question her motives. How could she not see the media crowded into the Florida courtroom?

She signed with Sharlene Martin, an agent for other high-profile people involved in controversial court cases. In interviews, Martin said the juror's book would be about "the commitment it takes to serve and be sequestered on a jury in a highly publicized murder trial."

I don't buy that, and neither did many others.

As quickly as this deal was made, the public took to social media to voice their outrage at someone - well, other than the lawyers - making money from this tragic and heartbreaking case.

Martin quickly dropped the couple as clients.

After the agent backed out, dozens of people tweeted their gratitude. Nothing like a social media smack-down to get you to rethink your actions and put your greed in perspective.

"I realize it was necessary for our jury to be sequestered in order to (protect) our verdict from unfair outside influence, but that isolation shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case," Juror B37 said in a statement. "The potential book was always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband's perspectives solely and it was to be an observation that our 'system' of justice can get so complicated that it creates a conflict with our 'spirit' of justice. Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury."

I expect that many books will be written about the Zimmerman case. It's too much of a controversial story for someone or some people not to figure out how to profit from it. That's the way we roll in our society. Unfortunately, not much escapes exploitation.

Contact Michelle Singletary, a personal finance columnist at The Washington Post, at singletarym@washpost.com.